OK, I'm the person who wrote the review on O'Reillynet. Yes, it's true. Vector Linux is not compliant with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). To make it compliant you need to remove two packages: libdvdcss and win32codecs. Oh, and yes, that will break a whole bunch of multimedia capability. There are fully licensed DVD players you can *BUY* for Linux if you really want to comply with the law in the U.S.

I think it's pretty well known that I plan to move to Israel once I meet certain personal and financial goals (fully debt free, substantial savings). I think I'm about two to three years from meeting those goals. My reasons are simple: a lot of my family lives there already, I can get by in the native language, most people do speak English and there is English language media if I want or need it, and I already hold citizenship. It's a very modern, very developed, and absolutely wonderful country to live in. I'd like to believe that it will eventually even manage to make peace with its neighbors despite all the obstacles. I was in college when the peace treaty with Egypt was signed and nobody believed that day would ever come either.

Israel has no equivalent of the DMCA despite U.S. pressure to enact such a law.

Conversely, many Slavic countries do not enjoy a high standard of living. (For instance, Belarus SUCKS.)

Hey! My maternal grandmother was from what is now Belarus.

OK, they have a totalitarian government with no respect for human rights and an really poor economy right now but that can change. I remember when Ireland was considered a very poor country and people were emigrating left and right. Now Ireland is an economic powerhouse and people want to move there. Governments change too. Look at Czechoslovakia 40 years ago and the Czech Republic today. The difference is night and day.

The official answer is YES we have been threatened many times.My response is as always so go ahead and sue me. Never seen the inside of a courtroom. Yet !

I'm curious about what kind of threat someone believes would be effective. If you're in Canada you aren't subject to U.S. law. They could go after companies that host VL including code considered to be in violation which would mean you'd have to remove the offending packages from U.S. servers and mirrors and/or host elsewhere.

FWIW, in the U.S. violating the DMCA isn't a civil case so the recourse wouldn't be a lawsuit. It's a felony. You can be arrested, charged, and jailed if you can't make your bond until trial.

Conversely, many Slavic countries do not enjoy a high standard of living. (For instance, Belarus SUCKS.)

Hey! My maternal grandmother was from what is now Belarus.

OK, they have a totalitarian government with no respect for human rights and an really poor economy right now but that can change. I remember when Ireland was considered a very poor country and people were emigrating left and right. Now Ireland is an economic powerhouse and people want to move there. Governments change too. Look at Czechoslovakia 40 years ago and the Czech Republic today. The difference is night and day.

True, if they quit psychiatric abuse in the Czech Republic, then they'll have both feet firmly planted in modernity.

And in Ireland they eventually figured out what the term 'fa-mi-ly plan-ning' means and of course they aren't racked with poverty anymore.1

In any case, I'm not knocking people based on their geographic origin. As far as I'm concerned, my ancestral homelands are dirty buttholes.

1 probably an oversimplification, but not treating the birth canal like an MG-42 goes a long way towards keeping you out of the dumper